


How Dare He

by Jochicha



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Romance, Sexual Content, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jochicha/pseuds/Jochicha
Summary: She was positive he was not at the party for there was no way she could be sitting in her strategic skirt with her legs strategically crossed and her hair strategically charmed into gorgeous strategical waves and James Potter red hot stare not be burning holes into her.





	How Dare He

She was trying not to think too hard about her reasons for spending such a ridiculously long time getting ready for a stupid party – particularly a party in celebration of _him_. She wasn’t headstrong enough to argue that his performance at the Quidditch match that day had been anything less than athletic brilliance, but yet another party in honour of James Potter's ability to not fall off a broom and throw a ball through a hoop the size a of a small house seemed redundant. Yet a quarter of Hogwarts’ population thought it imperative to get uproariously drunk and dance in circles around their Captain, celebrating his latest feat of beating Slytherin by the widest margin in decades, and Lily Evans had evidently thought it necessary to spend close to an hour making herself look good for the occasion.

Looking good, however, was an understatement: Lily could not recall the last time she had spent so much time on her appearance. She had so much cosmetic charmwork on that Flitwick should allow her to teach his class for him. She had strived for it to be unnoticeable, however – she would rather spend the rest of her time at Hogwarts rooming with Filch than have anyone know she had tried for Potter’s party. Yet she was deeply satisfied with the sultry results of her efforts. She secretly could not wait for their inevitable results. He would lose it. He had to. She would rather spend the rest of her time at Hogwarts rooming with Filch _in the Forbidden Forest_ than admit to noticing it, but Potter had been sort of ignoring her lately and it was beginning to bother her. She wanted to look good to see how serious the situation was for she was not sure she liked James Potter sort of ignoring her.

The party had not been going on for half an hour and yet the noise of rowdy Gryffindor fun was almost loud enough to make the Tower shake. Most people were evidently already inebriated – Sirius Black had snuck in enough Firewhisky to drink an army half to death. She had chosen to remain sober, however, for she had the intuitive notion that getting drunk while wearing that dangerously short black suede skirt was not a good idea, so she was sitting by herself on a cushy arm chair near one of the bigger windows, watching her friends dance, all of them at once, with Peter Pettigrew.

“Merlin, Lily, you look amazing!” said Remus Lupin as he sat himself on the armrest of her chair. His eyes were glinting with his light alcoholic buzz, and Lily noticed he looked much better than he had at the beginning of the week when he had been so sick again he had spent a couple nights in the Hospital Wing.

“Why, thank you, Remus!” she smiled at her friend “You clean up quite nicely yourself.”

“It is the occasion of the year. I had to bring my best forward.” Said Remus as he took a swing of the drink on his hand.

“The occasion of the year? A _Quidditch_ party?” said Lily sarcastically.

“Don’t let James hear you say that. He thinks this party will be the stuff of legends” said Remus with a laugh. “In fact, I don’t know where he even is – I can’t imagine him missing a second of a party he’s the centre of…”

Lily had been wondering the exact same thing since the moment she’d taken her place at her remote chair. She was positive he was not at the party for there was no way she could be sitting in her strategic skirt with her legs strategically crossed and her hair strategically charmed into gorgeous strategical waves and James Potter red hot stare not be burning holes into her. She had developed a sixth sense over the years to detect the Head Boy staring at her and a supernatural talent for ignoring it. A supernatural talent that was not good for anything when he decided not to show up to his own bloody party.

“You look particularly disapproving tonight, Evans. And you, Moony, look particularly sober. How disappointing.”  
Lily looked up to see Sirius Black smiling down at her, a drink in his hand, the top buttons of his shirt undone in what she was certain was a move as calculated as the casual yet snugly fitted jumper she was wearing. Most girls thought Black woke up every day looking like a deliciously disheveled Muggle rock star but Lily knew better – it took one to know one.

“You shouldn’t tease me, Sirius. I am Head Girl, I should confiscate all of your liquor and send that Hufflepuff fifth-year that you’ve been dancing with on her way to her own common room and better choices.” Sirius laughed and his shaggy yet undoubtedly conditioned curls danced around his head.

“Yes, but then there would be no party and you’d miss your chance to turn Prongs on in your little outfit.” Sirius grinned wildly at the appalled look on Lily’s face while Remus did his very best not to giggle. Remus failed. “C’mon Evans, I’m just taking the piss. Come dance with me.”

“Dance with you? The Hufflepuff child would be terribly upset. But then again, that would be terribly funny.” Lily looked at Remus. “Do you mind me leaving you on your own?”

“Go have fun, Lil. I might try and dance with our Hufflepuff friend myself.”

Lily stood up and took the subtly yet most definitely manicured hand Sirius was offering her and he led her to the area in front of the fireplace that Peter Pettigrew and Will McKinnon had turned into a dance floor. The music was loud and upbeat and the dancers were drunk and merry with Gryffindor pride. Sirius started stepping rhythmically around her and Lily did her best not to keep looking around the room for a black head of unkempt hair, but still her eyes carried on darting across the common room.

“You are _actually_ looking for him!” Sirius looked happier than she’d seen him since the time Mulciber had fallen off a hippogriff in third year Care of Magical Creatures.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Black.”

“Yeah you do. James. You did actually put on the little outfit on for him. Oh, never worry, it’s phenomenally done. The tight jumper might be a tad too much though…”

“You’re being ridiculous.” She said as indignantly as she could muster, covertly pulling her jumper away from her body.

“I’m impressed. You are definitely the best-looking bird here tonight.” Lily hit his arm. Sirius cackled. “Imagine how much more he’ll notice when he sees you dancing with the best-looking bloke.”

“Seriously, you’re talking nonsense.”

“I’m not. I’m just curious. You’ve been rather terminant on your refusals of his attentions. You have, Evans.” Sirius cocked an eyebrow as Lily escaped his accusing gaze. “In fact, I thought you were glad he’s stopped chasing after you. I know _I_ am.”

Lily felt herself blushing. She stared at her shoe fixedly, trying her best to keep the colour from creeping up her neck onto her face. She failed miserably, of course.

“Oh dear. It’s just that, isn’t it? He’s stopped chasing you so now you put on your tart skirt and dance with me in the middle of the dance floor.” Sirius was laughing so hard now that Lily wondered how badly she could hex him without getting detention for the rest of her life. “Forgive me, Evans, but it’s beautiful. Simply beautiful. You are so predictable. He’s a genius.”

Lily turned around and started her way back to the safety of her chair in her private far-off corner, but Sirius held her by her shoulder and spun her around rather forcefully. He locked eyes with her in a manner that let her know immediately that she would not escape his realisation. She wordlessly gave permission for Merlin to strike her where she stood and end her misery.

“Oh no, Evans darling, you are not walking away from this. You must carry out your plan, yes, you must. You’ll dance with me until he gets here and he goes berserk with jealousy and carries you off somewhere to ravish you and have little ginger children.” Lily was blushing so furiously she imagined there was no longer any difference in colour between her face and her hair. “And it doesn’t particularly hurt me that every girl here thinks I’m suddenly sexier when I’m laughing so much and having such a splendid time with a girl who looks like you.”

Sirius was not mistaken. Lily had noticed that most of the younger girls were glaring daggers at her. Of all the mysteries of life, Sirius Black’s success with witches remained to her one of the greatest.

Someone spoke right behind her.

“Why, don’t you look good in that skirt.”

Her heart stopped. She didn’t know how she could have missed him come in but she would have recognised the flirty smugness in his voice anywhere. She smiled in satisfaction to herself and felt so confident in the sassy retort she’d had at the ready all night that she didn’t notice the horrified look on Sirius’s face as she turned around like a whip.

He looked so good she almost felt stupid in all her makeup. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his hair was messed up and the purple bruise left from the game earlier did nothing but highlight the extraordinary sharpness of his jaw – and he wasn't looking at her.

Josephine Welsh, the fifth year Seeker for Gryffindor House, was standing against the wall by the mantle of the fireplace, her sensibly long skirt and her correctly sized jumper fitting her perfectly as a waterfall of flawless chestnut hair cascaded heavily past her shoulders. Her pouty lips were so naturally rose-coloured that Lily wanted to slap her.

Potter was leaning towards Josephine Welsh, all his weight resting on the taut arm he had up against the wall above her head, a glass of Firewhisky on the other. He was smiling his most charming smile and that alone made Lily swallow hard. Every girl at Hogwarts –at least those who did not belong to the tribe of Sirius’ groupies - would probably trade her firstborn for one of James Potter’s full-on charm smiles, but they were incredibly rare, that precise mix of devilish debauchery and undivided attention. Lily had only seen Potter smile at two people like that – Minerva McGonagall and herself.

“I had to put my best on for my Captain.” said Welsh as she looked up at James through her heavy, curly, infuriatingly contrasting lashes. She was biting her lips just so, the white teeth looking like freshwater pearls against her impossibly full, luscious lips. James was looking at her as if he were a hunter stalking a prey. His hazel eyes were fixed on hers with an intensity Lily could feel all the way from where she stood.

She could hear her blood rushing through her ears and almost didn’t feel Sirius’s hand gingerly resting on her shoulder. She shook him off.

“Your Captain is very thankful. Say, Welsh, would you dance with me? If you dance half as well as you flew today we’ll put everyone else here to shame.” he was still grinning at her. He never took his eyes from her as he followed her to the very middle of the dance floor and never did he look at Sirius or Lily as his companion and him started to sway not a metre away from them.

She had no words. _Josephine Welsh_. It made complete sense. She was an impeccable Quidditch player and the person everyone knew McGonagall would name Captain after James left Hogwarts. She was a Prefect and an excellent student and, until right now when she hated her more than she’d ever hated another living soul, Lily had always thought she was a lovely girl. She had never noticed, however, how much Josephine Welsh looked like she’d just walked off the cover of Witch Weekly and how kind Quidditch could be to the female body. Lily wanted to rip her head off and have it for dessert after she ate James’s.

“Evans, you’re fucking staring. Try not to be obvious.” whispered Sirius in her ear as he took her by the arm and turned her towards him so she wouldn’t be facing the couple dancing next to them head on. “Lily. _Move_. Fucking dance with me, Lily.”

Sirius was right of course, so Lily began to move absentmindedly and trusted the boy in front of her to make up for her lack of enthusiasm. It was all she could do not to look at them fixatedly, but she still heard every word they said.

She had never heard him so flirtatious. He kept paying Welsh compliments about her performance at the game and how good a Prefect she’d been, he was proud to be Head Boy next to her. He kept throwing his head back as he laughed wholeheartedly at whatever came out of her pretty little pink mouth, and Lily kept digging her fingernails into her palms so hard she was sure she’d eventually draw blood.

Sirius moved closer to her now to hide the fact she was barely dancing by taking her by the waist and shoving her to the sides to force her to move with him, and coincidentally Lily saw out of the corner of her eyes that James had stepped closer to Welsh and snaked his arms around her petite frame. Something inside Lily’s stomach dropped, heavy as lead.

“He wouldn’t.” Lily whispered murderously at Sirius as he pushed her to her sides from her hips and did all he could to keep some resemblance of a rhythm. Sirius looked at her with such genuine pity that Lily felt an overwhelming need to set the whole common room, the whole Tower, the whole bloody school on fire.

Black should not pity her for she was not sad. She did not want to cry and hide. She was angry, completely irate, and she wanted to reach into the pocket of her skirt for her wand and blow Potter so high in the air he’d starve before he hit the ground again. He was dancing cheek to cheek with Josephine Welsh and talking about what a gift from Merlin to wizardkind she was while Lily was being jerked around by Sirius Black in a skirt that was too short and a jumper that was too tight. She had not felt such all-consuming rage in all her years yet she would not leave. She could not walk away from James Potter dancing with another girl. She could not stop hearing him laugh at whatever stupidities some other woman was whispering in his ear. She could do nothing but stand there and blush and trust Sirius to make the best of a situation that could not be worse.

But it could be. It could be much worse. And it would be.

At first, she was relieved that they’d stopped talking. Perhaps he had realised he was being ridiculous and had walked away from Welsh with disgust in his eyes. Perhaps he had been hit with the sudden, unignorable recognition that Josephine Welsh was a boring, basic, insipid twat with skin that was eerily, suspiciously clear and that her jokes were most definitely not funny enough to make _James fucking Potter_ laugh like he was laughing and that her hair, shiny and silky and infuriating as it may be, was not even red.

But he hadn’t.

Lily turned around to see Josephine Welsh’s fingers run through the black hair sticking up at the back of his head as he held her tightly against him with his free hand and kissed her. He kissed her passionately, intensely, like they were not in the middle of the common room, like dozens of people were not there with them, like Lily was not standing a few strides away with a wand in her pocket that could blow him off the face of this Earth. He was kissing her like there was nothing else in the world he would rather be doing – no one else he would rather be sticking his tongue into in the most public of fashions.

“Oh, fuck, Evans.” said Sirius. He’d stopped dancing as well and all colour had gone from his face. He sported a painful grimace, half awkwardness and half commiseration, as if he had been prepared for any possible outcome but this one. He stepped towards Lily and stroked the outside of her arm with a tenderness she hardly would have expected from him before. Sirius Black felt sorry for her. _Sirius Orion Black_ thought she needed him to comfort her and stroke her arm like he would a child’s. If Lily had been in full use of her faculties and emotions she would have wept from indignation alone.

But Lily was not feeling anything anymore – no shame, no rage, no sadness. She was only thinking.

“Black, if you don’t do this for me I promise I will never forgive you.”

“What do you mean? Lily, if you’re going to…” but Sirius could not finish whatever he was saying because Lily held his face firmly in place with her hands and kissed him hard on the mouth. Sirius remained absolutely immobile but held no resistance as Lily pried his lips open with hers. She tasted the Firewhisky on his breath. Firewhisky and fear.

The whole room went silent. For a few seconds Lily heard nothing at all, nothing but her heart in her ears and Sirius’s breath in her face, until the glass in James’s hand hit the ground and smashed into a million crystal pieces.

Her ears were buzzing and her knees were shaking as she stepped back to look at the frozen expression of sheer panic on Sirius’s face. She could feel every eye in the room on her but only one glare felt hot and furious enough that she thought she would burst into flames right then and there.

“Oh, Black, you’re _such_ a laugh.” she said giggling as she smacked him playfully on his chest. Sirius’s face was completely void of colour. He was as white as his shirt. “I’ll see you later, mate, yeah?” and with that, she pivoted on her heel and made her way out through the portrait hole as fast as she could without blatantly breaking out into a sprint.

She broke into a manic run the second she was out in the corridor. She could barely see anything but red all over. How dare he. How the fuck dare he. She ran and ran and felt the ball of fury at the back of her throat tighten with every rapid step she took. She ran until she could be no farther from Gryffindor Tower, found a door that led to a remote, empty room, and shut the door behind her so violently it must have been heard from Hogsmeade.

He had to have known what he was doing. He must have. There was no other way to be so efficiently cruel than intentionally. He had to have known that kissing some Quidditch sleaze in front of everyone, in front of her, would break things inside her that he had strived to avoid for years. He was the one person in the world she had argued with the most yet she had never wished to exterminate him as much as she did now. Not the day they’d met when they were eleven and he was a smarmy idiot who thought himself better than her because he knew about the school Houses whilst the very idea of sleeping away from home made her want to get off the train, not that time in third year when Bertram Aubrey had cancelled their first date to Hogsmeade because Potter had made his head twice as big and promised to leave it that way if he ever went out with her, not the time he’d picked a fight by the lake with Severus Snape and ruined the one relationship in her life that connected her to home. He had never made her angrier than when he rejected her.

Josephine Welsh had ran her hand through James Potter's hair. Lily wanted to die.

The big leather-bound book she picked off the floor made such a racket as she hurled it stormily across the room that she did not hear the door slam open almost as forcefully as she’d closed it.

“What the fuck was that?” Potter’s voice was as dangerously low as the growl of a monster.

She could not imagine how he could have dared to follow her. She could not fathom what he could have to say for himself. She also could not possibly figure out how he had found her so quickly when she had made such a conscious effort to get as far away from him and Welsh as that castle allowed, but she was so angry at him that such a question did not trouble her much right then and there.

She slanted her eyes so tightly she almost didn’t see him as she turned to face him. His hair was particularly disastrous, as if he had run his hands through it like a madman all the way there, and his eyes were burning with a hatred so obviously febrile she could only compare it to her own. She thought he looked like god.

“Excuse me?” she retorted menacingly.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Evans. What the bloody hell was that?” his face was becoming a dangerous shade of harrowing red and Lily failed to repress the satisfaction his fury brought her.

“I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, Potter.”

“Sirius.” he snarled.

“Oh, that.” He was looking angrier by the second if that was even possible. She smiled. “What about it?”

“Have you lost your mind?” He took a threatening step towards her and she raised her chin to hold his gaze as she stood firmly in her place.

“I don’t believe so, no. I don’t think I was the only one having myself a good old snog. I don’t see the problem.” She balled her hands into fists so he would not see them tremble but there was hardly anything she could do about the shaky cadence to her voice.

“What?” his voice was but a whisper and his jaw was clenched so tight Lily prayed it would break.

“You heard me. You can shove your tongue down Welsh’s throat like the common room is your private dormitory but Black and I can’t have some fun?” If she hadn’t known the boy in front of her like the back of her hand, the look on his face as he heard those words would have scared her half to death.

“This is about Josie?” he asked as his jaw clenched tighter and his face turned redder and his brows furrowed so close together they looked like one.

“Oh, it’s _Josie_ now, isn’t it?” she cried, her hands flying in the air around her head. For an instant she wondered to herself if she had finally gone completely insane but she cared so very little she did not lower her voice or kept her waving arms down. “Fucking fantastic. You carry on shagging _Josie_ in the middle of a party like a savage and I’ll keep snogging whoever I damn well please.”

He was nonplussed.

  
“You have no right to do this. Not now. Not after putting me through fucking hell for years, Evans, _years_.” The rage of his expression was now mixed with confusion and a note of misery Lily ached to ignore. She was too far past furious to give a damn about his feelings. “You’ve made it very clear you wanted me to move on and it appears I have. You have no fucking right.”

“Oh, but you do have the right to kiss people right in front of me?” she now took a step towards him, her voice still nothing short of a shriek. She had no time to analyse the logic of what she was saying but something told her it would not hold much rational inspection.

“What. Do. You. Care?” he spoke each word as if it were the deadliest hex he knew. He matched her by taking another step towards her. They were now so close she was quite literally screaming in his face.

“Of course I care, you idiot!” she spoke before she could think better. “You know I care. How dare you humiliate me like that?”

“Humiliate you?” his former baneful gnarl had turned to blatant, indignant yelling. “I humiliated you? You threw yourself at my best mate, knowing how I’ve felt about you, and you feel humiliated?”

The past tense in his language would have broken Lily’s heart if she had not been too injudiciously irate to notice.

“You paraded yourself with her in front of me knowing how I feel about you!” when his eyebrows shot up to his hairline in surprise, she did nothing but yell even louder. “Oh, come on, Potter. Don’t play the fool. You must have known. Everyone knows.”

“How you feel about me?” he was looking at her questioningly now instead of fiercely, and the firm inquiry was suddenly not a gnarl or a scream anymore. “How do you feel about me, Evans?”

“It doesn’t matter now! It doesn’t matter because you want Josephine Welsh now because you were enough of an idiot to listen to me when I told you I didn’t want you!” she hit his chest with each of her last four words. “And now we’re fucked and I hate you and we’ll never…”

“Evans. Shut up. How do you feel about me?”

“You know, you absolute imbecile. You must know. Everybody knows that I want you and that I’ve wanted you for…”

She could not finish her sentence because her head hit the wall too hard as he pushed her against it, yet she did not notice any pain at all because suddenly he was kissing her and his hands where everywhere and he was so mad and she was so angry and none of it mattered. If she had been able to think about anything at all she would have thought that kiss felt more like a brawl. He hoisted her up from the back of her thighs and pressed her firmly against the wall with his body. She wrapped her legs around his waist.

“I hate you too, Evans.” he groaned into her mouth and the warmth of his breath made her feel intoxicated.

“Tell Welsh about it.” he reprimanded her cheek by pressing himself more forcefully against her, so close there was not an inch of him she could not feel. She brought her hands through the back of his hair like she’d imagined doing so many times and almost laughed at him when he whimpered in satisfaction. “What was that, Potter?” she inquired smugly.

“Fuck you, Evans.” he whispered as he tore himself from her mouth and left a trail of wet kisses down her neck to her collarbone. Lily did not know a kiss could do that to someone. She threw her head back and moaned, and it was now Potter who chuckled at her enjoyment. He kept on sucking and kissing and biting at her pulse point as he began lifting the edge of her jumper, his long fingers digging hungrily at the skin underneath, slowly bringing the jumper upwards, but Lily really did not have time for Potter to be fumbling about with her stupid clothes when there were so many other wonderful things he could be doing with his hands instead, so she yanked her top up from the shoulders and through her head, throwing it absentmindedly across the room. Apparently, Potter was turned on by clothes that flew because he came back at her neck so fervently she tried for a moment to remember if she knew any bruise vanishing spells for the marks he was undoubtedly leaving, yet her wonderings lasted but a second because she was suddenly deeply offended by the fact that she was in her skimpy black lace contraption that could hardly be considered a bra at all and James Potter was rudely still wearing his shirt. She tugged insistently at his shirt but Potter’s hands had moved to support her from her bum now and that appeared to be taking all his attention.

“Potter.” he came back to her mouth and her eyes almost rolled back into her head. She had to break herself apart to speak again and it almost killed her. “Shirt, Potter.” He didn’t seem to have heard her, his tongue was doing things to her tongue that would have made the Bloody Friar blush. “Take your fucking shirt off.”  
As James literally ripped his shirt open, buttons flying around the empty, dark classroom, she suddenly understood his reaction to the flying sweater. She had never in her life even imagined something as fucking sexy as James Potter taking his clothes off for her.

“Merlin, Evans. You don’t have to stare like that.” the repletion in his voice would have made her roll her eyes in annoyance just a few months before but now she just brought her hand to him, more slowly than perhaps she had intended to, and traced the outline of the muscles on his chest with her fingertips. He stood there looking at her, his hair messier than she had ever seen it, his glasses lopsided, supporting most of her weight only with the delicious pressure of his body pushing hers into the wall. She brought her fingers down his abdomen, drawing little circles with the tip of her nails as she went lower, and lower, and lower, until she had reached the brim of his trousers. He cocked an eyebrow as she hooked a finger through one of his belt hoops.

“You don’t really hate me, Potter, do you?” she asked softly, unexpectedly too shy to look him in the eye as she played with the buckle of his black leather belt. His hands had come up to her naked waist and she could feel that they were trembling slightly. She found it sweet.

“No, Evans. I don’t.” his voice was so husky it was hardly more than a grunt.

“Good. I don’t really hate you either.” she answered as she brought her hand to her back to undo the clasp on her bra. His eyes grew like they’d been Engorgio-ed as she pulled the lace straps down her arms and tossed the bra away. She brought his head down to kiss the purple bruise on his sharp, sharp jaw she’d noticed earlier, from his Quidditch game, and felt for the first time the heat of his bare skin on hers. She moaned softly into his lips as he brought a hand to her cheek and stroked it gently. He whimpered.

“Fuck, Evans.” said Potter, the hand that was not holding her face so tenderly coming up to explore her front in a way that Lily could only have described as maddening. She was so far gone into the moment that she could not process coherent thoughts anymore – there was nothing in the world but the wall against her back and the boy at her lips.

His hand eventually started making its way down her chest to her abdomen, to the suede skirt that had ran up so high it no longer served any purpose at all. Potter seemed to share this appreciation because he put the top button at the front of it between her fingers and looked at her quizzingly.

She nodded. “Off with it.” he smiled and started undoing the buttons running up the front of her skirt. “And this, too.”

Potter grinned even wider as she tugged at his belt. Soon they were wearing very little and then absolutely nothing at all and Lily could hardly even tell anymore where it was exactly that James Potter’s body ended and hers began. She was lost in the intoxicating way the skin behind his ear tasted when she felt him move one of his hands between her legs. She threw her head back and moaned his name and aimed to reciprocate the wonderful, wonderful thing he was doing for her but she could do nothing at all but stand there and try her best not to die.

“You are,” he paused to kiss her ear after whispering into it “the single most perfect thing I have ever seen.” She moaned harder as he curled his fingers in places she was sure hadn’t existed inside her until then.

“Do you have any idea how angry I am at you right now?” he murmured as he bit into the tender parts of her shoulder “You told me you didn’t want me. You swore.”  
His fingers were moving faster and faster and Lily’s face was burning and her toes were curling and something deep inside of her was breaking beautifully into a million irreparable pieces.

“I believed you, you know. I thought you didn’t want me. You told me a million times that you didn’t want me. You almost killed me, Evans.”

He was killing her right then, she thought, but she could utter no words but the ragged, desperate whimpering that filled the room.

“Say you want me.” he whispered against her ear, nipping softly as her face contorted in the most perfect, all-consuming agony. She would have liked to think it was her Gryffindor pride that kept her from answering but the tidal wave building tempestuously from the pit of her stomach would not have allowed her to speak if it had been the thing she most wanted to do in the world.

And then his fingers stopped moving. She almost bit off the piece of his neck she was currently moaning against.

“Evans. Say you want me.”

She wished she had not thrown her wand across the bloody room with her skirt so she could Avada Kedabra this complete idiot.

“I want you.” her words came out much more wanton and impassioned that she ever would have allowed them if she had had her clothes on and he was not as disturbingly beautiful. He was the most beautiful thing that had ever pressed her against a classroom wall.

And then he was inside her again but it was no longer his fingers that were making her fall apart, and she laughed at herself for having thought that what she had felt minutes ago was pleasure. It felt as though she had only realised something was missing when he had filled up the vacant space and the idea that she could ever stop being this complete was too horrible to even consider. That, and it felt wonderful. It felt fucking amazing.

Later, when it was over and he was bringing her down to her unsteady feet again, the enormity of what had happened presented itself to her all at one. She looked at him almost apprehensively but the look on his face erased every single doubt she could have possible come up with. She had never seen someone look so calmly, completely satisfied. He looked like he had found a peace he’d always known he needed.

He was trying to charm his buttons back onto his shirt when she walked up to him and hugged him from the back. He chuckled softly and spun around to hug her back.

“Go out with me, Evans.” he murmured into her hair as he kissed it.

“Yes, Potter.” her voice was muffled as she pressed her face into his chest but the sincerity in her voice was unmistakable.

“James.” he said.

“What?” said Lily.

“My name is James, Lily.”


End file.
